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November 24, 2009
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Jean Grossman's Research Children and FamiliesJean Grossman, in conjunction with Jean Rhodes (University of Massachusetts-Boston) and Carla Herrera (Public/Private Ventures), developed a set of standardized outcome measures that could be used by all BBBS agencies and other youth mentoring programs to gauge outcomes. The measures included indicators related to academic performance, behavior, psychological wellbeing, parent/peer relationships, and vocational aspirations. The second phase of the study, set for 2008, will test out the measurement package with a set of agencies, having case managers use the instrument to track the progress matches are making over 12 months.
Grossman also examines whether an intensive, well implemented, academically focused, out-of-school-time (OST) program can increase academic performance of disadvantaged fifth- through eighth-grade students and at what cost. Over three years, 1,020 students will be recruited into the study and half will be randomly assigned to receive an offer to participate in an intensive OST program offered by the Higher Achievement Program (HAP) of Washington, DC. HAP provides students four years of summer school, after school programming and high school placement assistance. During 2007, Grossman oversaw the recruitment and randomization of the second and third cohorts of fifth and sixth-graders.
Jointly with Manpower Development and Research Corporation (MDRC), Jean Grossman is designing and is working on the impact evaluation of a multi-organizational project for the U.S. Department of Education. This project involves conducting two parallel random assignment evaluations (each with 2,000 sample members) of reading and math after-school curricula to test the impacts on key student outcomes, especially academic achievement. During 2007, in conjunction with staff at MDRC, she helped analyze the first year of experimental data, including analyzing how the quality of implementation affected the size of the impacts and helped draft the first-year report. She developed the method that was used in the analysis to account for the multiple tests. She also developed the evaluation design for the second year.
Grossman, as co-principal investigator, is designing and conducting a random assignment evaluation of Big Brothers Big Sisters' school-based mentoring program. The study will entail following the lives of approximately 1,000 elementary and middle school students for a year and a half from the time they apply to the program. Grossman directed the analysis of both the end-of-school-year impacts and the 15-month impacts. In addition, she conducted analysis on the association between the length of a school-based match and impacts, as well as the quality/closeness of the mentee-mentor relationship and impacts. Much of the year was also spent writing up these results and conducting follow-up analyses.
As co-principal investigator of a study to determine the cost of high quality out-of-school time programs, Jean Grossman's project entails collecting cost data from hundreds of programs and the development of a "blue book" or a hedonic cost index that can be used to determine the cost of programs with different types of structures and focus (i.e. academic programs, recreational programs, school-based vs. community based, with higher or lower staff-youth ratios, etc.). In 2007, Grossman oversaw the analysis of the program cost data including conducting the "blue book" analysis, and wrote three publications from this data--one on the cost of out of- school time programs, one on city-level costs of strengthening programs, and lastly, the "blue book."View All Research on Children and Families
Source: OPR Annual Reports.
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